


All I Want

by PizzaHorse



Series: Weblena Week 2018 [3]
Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Betrayal, Duck - Freeform, Ducks, Emotional, Emotional Hurt, Emotions, F/F, Feelings, Friendship, Heavy Angst, Memories, Reminiscing, Sad, Strong Female Characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2018-10-19
Packaged: 2019-08-04 07:28:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16342421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PizzaHorse/pseuds/PizzaHorse
Summary: The loss of Lena is hardest on Webby.





	All I Want

**Author's Note:**

> Put a little extra angst in your day by listening to this song before reading: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68fAjd29pR0

Webby liked to imagine how things might be different.

Sometimes, she thought about what it would be like if her parents were still around. She felt like she should be sad that they weren't. Other people were sad about it. But she had never really known them and granny had always been able to provide for her. Just the two of them had been all the family Webby needed. So she wasn't sad about not having parents, in the traditional sense, even if she felt weird that she wasn't. But if they had been around, things could have been different.

If her best friend was still around, things could also be different.

She thought about all the plans she and Lena had made for this weekend. The plans Lena had agreed to, knowing full well what was coming. It was supposed to be a multi-day sleepover, full of movies and snacks and games. Or maybe an adventure of some kind. Sometimes they made all sorts of plans and didn't stick to any of them and just talked for awhile, or Webby would read while Lena fiddled on her phone and they enjoyed each others quiet company. Neither of them seemed to mind when that happened.

They had spent most weekends together over the past few months, and a lot of the weekdays, too. Webby was allowed a lot of freedom despite her age, so she didn't question why Lena went home so infrequently. It would have never occurred to her that "home", for Lena, was a secret passage under an abandoned amphitheater by the beach, full of bones and dead plants and other trinkets her friend had picked up from the shore. Dimly lit and lonely, with nothing but the gentle sound of the waves for company. Webby shuddered when she thought about it.

Who took care of her when she got sick? Who made her food? Who looked after her when she wasn't at the manor? Webby recalled seeing some cereal boxes when she first discovered the place with the triplets, that fateful day not so long ago, but that couldn't really be what Lena had been living off of. Could it?

How long had she been there, alone? Where had she lived before? Was Magica really the only family she'd ever known? How many nights of inclement weather had she spent huddled in a space that was never meant for more than prop storage?

It was oddly fitting, in a sort of morbid way, since Lena  _was_  just Magica's prop. Her puppet, come to life. Yet somehow, that creation, that part of her, had become its own entity. Webby knew it, because she'd touched her, felt her, held conversations with her. She was real, despite what Magica said. She had a mind and a will of her own, and Webby knew that because in the end, Lena had saved her. Webby would have given anything to be in her place. To sacrifice herself instead. Lena didn't deserve anything that had happened to her.

Maybe if she'd been paying attention, asked more questions,  _she_  could have been the one to save her best friend. If she had just seen the signs of Lena's plight, maybe inquired more about her family or her history or her living situation, maybe Lena would have confided in her. Maybe if she hadn't been absorbed in rambling about her research or if she wasn't so gullible as to believe all of Lena's flimsy excuses for her sometimes odd actions, she could have known. Maybe, maybe, a lot of maybes.

Every day of her life as far back as she could remember, Webby had hot meals, clean clothes, and a dry bed. She knew there were others in the world who were not as fortunate, sure. She wouldn't have imagined her best friend, who always had a cool and collected air about her, was one of them. Like she didn't have a care in the world, even though she was constantly fighting inside herself. Had she known, Webby would have begged Scrooge to let her stay, to pick out her own room that she could always come back to, a place where she could be safe and truly call home for as long as she needed.

It was far too late for that now.

Webby considered that maybe, for a moment, Lena wanted to pretend that things were going to be different, that her life wasn't about to be over, that she had a future to look forward to and she wasn't a shadow and a slave to a sorceress out for revenge. Maybe that's why she'd helped make plans she knew would never come to fruition. Maybe she was oblivious, just as Webby had been, to what her fate would ultimately be.

But maybe all the stories she told, about going to Paris and getting kicked out of a number of boarding schools, growing up near Mount Vesuvius, and touring with bands Webby had never heard of, maybe they were a way for her to forget. To imagine that her life was different in order to take her mind off of her eventual doom. Then again, it could have all been true, a way for Lena to pass the time with what freedom Magica allowed her. But Webby wouldn't get to ask her whether all those tales were real or fake.

There were two parts of Webby that had been fighting ever since it all happened. One side that told her Lena was her friend and she didn't have a choice and was forced to help Magica. There was the other part that wanted to claim everything was all a trick, everything they'd done together had been fake, that their friendship was a means to an end. Maybe that second part was a way for her to try to forget all the memories they had made and the moments they'd shared. If they were fake, if they were just a lie, she shouldn't miss them. But she did miss them terribly.

Because why, when they'd first met, was Lena idly throwing bottles into the ocean, creating fake messages just for the fun of it? How could that have possibly been any part of Magica's plan? And she remembered that Lena had invited her to the Beagle birthday party, before she even knew of her connections with Scrooge McDuck. None of that had been fake. It  _couldn't_  be.

She'd seen Lena smile, genuine smiles, that were so rare Webby could remember each one and count them in her head. She'd seen her filled with happiness and relief, like when she woke up from the nightmare in The Other Bin, or when she'd defeated the money shark. Lena had held her so close, hugged her so tight, there was no denying that she was her own person. There was no denying that she really did care for her.

Webby had seen Lena bloom, to come out of her shell and embrace their friendship. She'd barely offered a handshake when they first met, but slowly she'd become more receptive to light touches and hand holding and hugs. Less and less she flinched at every pat on the shoulder, she stopped holding her arms limply at her side when Webby tried to go in for a hug, and sometimes, when Webby wasn't expecting it, Lena might doze off against her while they were watching a movie.

Maybe, Webby realized, Lena only felt safe when she was with her. Maybe she was the one distraction that finally allowed her to forget, for a few short moments at a time, that she wasn't just a pawn in Magica's game. That maybe, someday, she could be free and live a normal life. Maybe their friendship had rekindled her hope in a future for herself.

She recalled that Lena had once mentioned she wasn't a hugger, which Webby usually forgot about. Now it was clear that every whisper on the wind, every shadow out of the corner of her eye, could have been Magica. She haunted her, always, watching her every move, listening to everything she said. It was no wonder she didn't want to be close to anyone, because Magica would use anything good that Lena came across against her.

So Webby sat and fiddled with the friendship bracelet around her wrist, thinking of all the things they said they were going to do. Huey, Dewey, and Louie had offered to participate in all the planned activities (although makeovers had been up for debate), but it wasn't the same and they knew it. But they'd tried, at least, which was all they really could do.

Everybody was trying an awful lot these days.

Granny made all her favorite foods, and she ate, and thanked her for them. Webby appreciated the effort, and she was truly grateful, but food tasted like nothing. She ate, because she needed to to survive, and because she didn't want to be wasteful. She ate because it made her grandmother happy, and she put on a smile and pretended that everything was fine and said "yes" when asked if she was feeling better, even though she wasn't. In fact, every day without Lena felt  _worse_.

Scrooge still invited her on adventures, hoping to lift her spirits. He even offered to let her choose where they went next. They could travel anywhere in the world that she wanted, even if it was just for a vacation and not an adventure. "Maybe a change of scenery would do us some good, eh?" he'd offered. Webby had politely declined.

Huey, Dewey, and Louie did their best, too. They got a bigger sailing boat, large enough to comfortably hold four, they'd told her (it was actually five, in the hopes that maybe Webby would make a new friend, but they left out that detail), and invited her to take it out for a test run with them. Every time they went out to Funso's, or were planning a prank on one of the adults, they tried to get Webby in on the excitement. But she couldn't find it in herself to get interested in anything besides her memories.

It was so hard because before, whenever she went on an adventure with Scrooge, she couldn't wait to get back and tell Lena about it. When she read a book, she couldn't wait to detail it to Lena, who was not a big reader herself but was a great listener. When granny made something delicious, she couldn't wait to invite Lena over to try it, because she always seemed so enthusiastic at the notion of freshly cooked food. And when she was missing her, all she had to do was invite her over and she'd be there. As if she had nothing else going on in life except to wait to hang out with her again. Which was probably true since she was biding her time until the eclipse and didn't have any other obligations.

Lena had come into her life and somehow become her whole world.

Now her world was gone.

Things were different, and also the same. Things were back to how they were before she met Lena. She still had all of her notes and charts about the McDuck family, mysteries to solve about the life of Della Duck, secret tunnels and passages in the mansion to find and explore. But what had once brought her joy and filled her imagination now seemed so trite. For most of her life, she had been content with her own company, the ability to work on projects uninterrupted and hours upon hours of peace and quiet in the manor.

She couldn't help but wonder what good all of her research and new findings was if she didn't have someone to share them with. She hadn't needed that kind of validation before, but once she had it in her life it was hard to imagine being without it. But it was something she'd have to learn to live with again, wasn't it?

And no matter how many times she told herself there was nothing she could have done, some part of her didn't believe it. If she'd been at the manor instead of going after the triplets and Donald, she could have been there to protect Lena. And Scrooge too, although he was in far less peril and more capable of taking care of himself. She could have fought Magica off, even if she'd gotten the dime. She could have done  _something_.  _Anything_. If only she'd been there. She could have stopped her. She could have.

Reuniting Scrooge with his family had still been important to her. It was important for  _them_. She didn't regret the effort she'd made to keep them together. In the end, it had taken all of them to defeat Magica and her shadow army. But she'd been so close and she could have insisted on staying even after they all left. Granny would have stayed if she had asked, she was sure of it. But there was no way she could have known how much Lena would need her.

It wasn't fair.

It wasn't fair that Magica had made a living, breathing,  _real_  person, and then just took her away. The reality that Lena was gone certainly upset Webby, but just what had happened to Lena? She lived, she had a home and needed food and other necessities. Despite claims from Magica that she had never been real, Webby had seen evidence to contradict that fact, undeniable proof of it.

So she couldn't just be  _gone_ , Webby reasoned. Some part of her hung to the hope that Lena was still  _somewhere_ , although the  _where_  eluded her. Magica had lost her powers in the battle at the money bin, and yet, that hadn't seemed to free Lena from her grasp. Maybe they were too closely linked for the mere loss of her staff to set Lena free.

But maybe she would have been freed, if Magica hadn't hit her with that final blast. Because, apparently, she had been some sort of alive, somewhere, which was how she had risen up to protect Webby when it seemed Magica was about to overtake her. She wasn't a match for the sorceress, much less so than Webby, but it had bought them all time and distracted Magica enough for them to get the dime. They'd been able to save Uncle Scrooge, but at such a great cost.

Webby would have given anything to trade places with Lena.

She knew she had so much more time left to live, but Lena, she had barely lived at all. And what small part of life she'd had was riddled with constant strife, always having to watch her back, always fearing for her own life, always scared, always trying to escape. Never really knowing freedom, only the empty promise of it. Not much of a life at all.

If wishing on clovers or wells or ladybugs or stars or any of those superstitions actually worked, Webby would have tried them all. Truth be told, she  _had_  tried them all, even if she didn't quite believe in them, because she would have tried or done anything to bring her friend back. To bring her back, or trade places, it didn't matter, as long as she could exist and be free in this realm of existence.

Webby could only hope that someday she'd be able to move on. Someday, her inner pain and turmoil would fade. "Time heals all wounds" was a common saying, and it came from somewhere, although it could just be something people said to try to make others feel better when they didn't actually know what to say. Which was fair, because there really was nothing that could be said to make Webby feel better at this time.

She couldn't bring her back, she couldn't trade places, and those were just the facts. The awful, truthful facts, but the facts. Nobody was shoving them in Webby's face, even though everyone knew it, although Webby was doing plenty to try to shove them in her own face, metaphorically, so all the bad feelings and wishful thinking could be over with.

Webby liked to imagine how things might be different.

But they weren't. Not now. Maybe not ever.

But that little maybe, the single hope or belief or whatever, that Magica couldn't or perhaps wouldn't snuff out a life so carelessly, and Lena was still somewhere, kept Webby going. The idea that trapping people for an eternity seemed more Magica's style, and Lena wasn't gone,  _gone_. Maybe just  _lost_.

There was magic in the world, all sorts of magic and spells and potions and possibilities. Magic that had kept Scrooge alive far longer than should have been possible. Magic that had allowed Lena to live and become her own person. Magic that had banished Magica into a coin for 15 years. Magic that could rewrite history. So maybe, there was something out there, something Webby hadn't yet discovered, that could fix everything.

Webby liked to imagine how things might be different.

Maybe someday they would be.

Maybe, someday.


End file.
